Baking with a souvenir and a thrifty tip

We didn’t really do any shopping on our recent trip except for a few groceries that we ate in our condo rental. 

We stopped at the College of the Ozarks as we left Branson.  We had their very fancy brunch buffet which was truly first rate and just delicious. 

In their gift shop area, we bought a bag of stone ground cornmeal.  They raise the corn and grind it there at the college.  

It’s even in a muslin bag.  

I wanted to try it so I baked cornbread muffins for our supper. 

I used our favorite recipe, this cornbread is just slightly sweet and perfect to eat with soup or stew.  

It was easy to find my recipe since I redid my recipes a month or so back.  

Most of the recipes are ones I’ve had a while.  I prefer recipes that just use ingredients, over recipes that call for a package of something or prepared storebought ingredients.  Basic recipes are usually the thriftiest and they are also best for homemakers like me that keep a pantry.   

 Below are the finished cornbread muffins and the pot of vegetable beef soup.  

Close up of the soup - I used some cooked roast beef from the freezer, onion, celery, carrots, cabbage, potatoes, corn, canned diced tomatoes and some beef bouillon.  

Thrifty tip - some produce is priced per pound and some is priced per item.  

Aldi’s cabbage was $1.19 a head.  It was very obvious that the heads were very different sizes so I picked out the biggest one I saw.   

My head was marked as weighing 2.5 pounds.  I knew it was bigger so I weighed it when I got home.  

It weighed almost 4 pounds!  

So when produce is priced per item,  look them over and pick out the biggest or heaviest one to get the most for your money.  

Almost Thanksgiving......

Good morning everyone.  My husband and I are back from a 4 day trip to Branson, Missouri.  We saw some beautiful fall foliage, ate some really good food and saw several Christmas music shows and 1 drama.  It really put us in a celebrating mood. 

Now I am getting ready to host Thanksgiving in our home.  

Since we were gone for a few days and I haven’t been to the grocery store,  our fridge is fairly empty.  It was empty enough that I could see it was truly in need of a good cleaning 

No before and just an after photo, but take my word that this fridge needed cleaning and now it looks so much better and white again.  We drink a lot of iced tea and it seems to somehow get dripped on every shelf in the fridge.  🤔 

I took everything out and washed all the shelves and drawers in the sink.  The inside was sprayed down and wiped down and I’m happy with the fruits of this labor.  

See that empty spot in the top shelf?  That’s where the turkey will be until my husband cooks it.  

And I have got to do a little shopping today,  especially to get a turkey.  

No pretty lists this week but below is my planning.......

Our menu plan- I don’t have a mountain of things to cook as family members have volunteered to help.  😍

We will have a traditional meal around noon and appetizers and snacks in the evening 

And probably desserts all day long. 

Shopping and housework list 

I’m guessing many of you are doing a lot of the same things this week that I am.  

Happy Thanksgiving 🍁 🦃 

I’ll be back blogging after this holiday weekend. 

Meal prep for a crowd

Hello everyone. 

Last weekend was a big football game in our town.  Some of our family members went to the game and quite a few of them were at our home for entire day, and a few spent the night. 

I needed to have meals planned ahead because complicated cooking just doesn’t happen when 6 young kiddos are here and doing restaurant food is not an option on game day.  Our town is not big and when 70000 football fans come,  all the streets, stores and restaurants are just full to capacity.  

So, first thing I did was write out a plan.  

We used food we already had so I didn’t need to spend any time shopping.  

The day before,  I cooked the ground beef for the taco salad and the sausage patties for breakfast.  I stored them in the fridge in zipper bags so there would 2 less containers to wash as meal clean up time.  

I made extra ice 

I set out ingredients we would be using over the weekend

And the crockpots that would be used for heating. 

I had never used the crockpot liners but I’m so glad we had them,  the Velveeta Rotel tomato dip is a family favorite but it makes a cooked on mess.  I won’t use the liners everytime I crockpot cook but I plan to always use them for Rotel dip.  

I had older eggs and newer eggs.  

The older eggs were cracked into 1 container to make sheet pan eggs for Sunday, which were OK but I prefer Stovetop cooked eggs.  The rest of the older eggs were hard boiled and we enjoyed them this past week on salads.  

Fixings ready for the taco salads- stored in plastic dishes with lids keeps them fresh.  

Fresh fruit and carrot sticks- stored the same way.  

The top right container is grapefruit, which is not the ruby red grapefruit that I thought I was buying.  

Orange jello with mandarin oranges and plain cherry jello- made in 5 ounce portion cups I buy from Amazon

It took planning to get everything to fit in our fridge but I did it. 

We use throw away dishes only when we have a big group for a meal. 

On Saturday, before everyone got here,  I put the taco meat and Rotel dip in their crockpots with liners to heat. 

Unsweetened tea and lemonade were put in these dispensers with an assortment of cups right beside them 

I don’t have photos of the actual meals except for this one as it was getting set up. 

It was just too busy a time to set up photos.  

Granddaughter Elizabeth is always happy with fresh fruit.  

Here are the 4 littlest grands-  all enjoyed their meals and playing with their cousins. 

Granddaughters Elizabeth and Andie- eating their favorite food- fruit and nachos.  

I took a few photos of the adults but they were not good and I have a rule that I never post unflattering photos of anyone.  

I’ve been cooking big meals for a long time, first for my family and then at church and at the 2 fraternity houses I worked at while we had 2 children in college.  

My advice is plan ahead, when possible use what you already have, and then be flexible because no matter how much you prep and plan,  things can get a little crazy.